What Does Remote Mean?

I was fortunate last week when I was speaking at the MADLAT conference in Winnipeg to hear Dr. Sugata Mitra speak. Dr. Mitra is known world wide as the founder of the hole in the wall experiments. This ground breaking research, taking place in India, placed kiosks with computers in them in isolated communities often where there was not even a school. These kids were then monitored to see what they would do. Over short periods of time, it was found that these kids did amazing things by themselves, seof organizing learning communities who did everything from learn english, teach themselves biotechnology skills, and soon request fast processors and better internet connections. This research has so many layers and pieces to look at that I will most likely be thinking much of it through over a few blog posts, but one of the main things that I have been thinking about is his concerns over ideas of remoteness.

As part of his research, Dr. Mitra gave basic tests of literacy and math to students in a line beginning in New Delhi and ending 300 kms outside the city. What he found was that the further out the schools were, there was a consistent pattern of falling achievement. His graphs showed a steady downward trend based on the remoteness from the urban centre. Expanding on this research showed that remoteness had many meanings, but also showed that students who were "remote" from the majority of society, whether by language, socio economic status or by other factors all showed the pattern of falling success rates.

He advocated for educational technology to be designed and distributed first for underprivileged communities as this is where it has the most potential to have the largest effect on tackling various concepts of remoteness. He spoke about OLPC and also about other ultra low cost computing initiatives and the potential they have for allowing students who are "remote," through any definition of the word, to have access and contact with society at large.

Living in a small community like I do, 700 - 800 kms away from any major urban centre, these ideas concern me. But I also think that people in larger centres are seeing more and more students who are remote for various reasons.  But what effect does blogging, commenting, skyping, etc. have on these feelings? Does giving all students having access to similar tools and information mean they are on an even level? As teachers, we feel much less isolated and remote through the international networks and contacts we have formed; would similar networks have a similar effect on our students? Is there a needed, measurable tipping point needed to overcome these issues? Would it be different for each student?

I am both interested and frustrated by this research. I am interested as it is another window into how kids learn. I'm frustrated because it might have a direct, possibly negative impact on learning that we need to think more about.

Tags: holein the wall, Dr. Sugata Mitra, learning, classrooms,

Comments

[Bellflower]

I grew up in a 'remote' northern community - not even a telephone. Today I teach online mainly because of a determination to increase access to excellent education regardless of geography.

My favourite example of the changing meaning of 'remote' in relation to geopolitics is the example of the school in Attawapiskat. It's a political no-brainer to cancel plans to build a school in a remote fly-in community (Who would ever find out?) until the story is made public on YouTube
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzLMuW1N50I). Currently: 56,440 viewings.

Suddenly 'remote' doesn't seem so remote anymore.

[kamccollum]

When I taught in the inner city, my students lived in the heart of the "urban core" but were separated from "mainstream" society by a wide socio-economic gulf. I taught there from 1998 to 2000, so I don't know for sure whether blogging, commenting, and Skyping are helping inner-city kids be any less "remote". However, the only computer in my classroom when I taught was an old Apple IIe with a 5 1/4 floppy drive and I seriously doubt that the school that I taught in has invested in the infrastructure to support technologies like blogging, commenting, and Skyping. I see a lot of potential for networking technologies in education, but I'm concerned that the technologies aren't going where they are most needed.